Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Before going further let us introduce a concept here. Whatever we perceive about outside is the projection of our mind. This implies if our mind is violent, we perceive violence outside us, if our mind is in order we perceive the outside world in order. Please do not come to the conclusion about this statement that this world is illusion or Maya as explained by few of the followers of Vedanta. The world is the existing entitiy, we are existing entities, everything happening in the world is happening in real time.

When we were discussing about the topic of self image we noted that whatever we know about ourselves is just the image of what we have about ourselves. That is the knowledge about ourselves itself is the projection of our mind. It is just the qualities we imagine about ourselves. That is whenever we use the word “I” or “Me”, it is just the bundle of qualities which our mind is projecting about ourselves plus our body. When the Indian philosophies indicates that we must forego our “ego” or “I centeredness” or “self” to reach the state of realization means, we must come out of this projection of our mind about ourselves to enter into pure reality. That implies, we are no more certain bunch of qualities, we are just the absolute existence as it is. We have the complete knowledge of existence within us by means of our conscious/subconscious/unconscious/collective-unconscious mind.

Let us analyze how this image affects our perception of world and hence before solving the problem outside, the requirement about the need to solve the problems inside. To solve the problem inside, what are the necessary changes to be happened inside and how to bring about those changes!

Normally we say we are deeply attached with our spouse, children and parents, at least. Let us try to see how far it is true. This analyze is not to prove that what we have is not attachment or we do not love those relations. But to indicate all these attachments and whatever we are saying are just the projection of our mind. Once we understand our present state, towards these relations are just the projection of our mind, we will be able to give true Love to them, which will give pain neither to us nor to them, but provide the ultimate happiness. That is the basic essence of this discussion. Please note that this discussion is not for bringing in any conflicts within us, but to eliminate the conflicts within us. After the discussion, if any new conflict arises within us, say about our relationships, it implies that the essence of this discussion has not entered in to our perception, but only the words entered into our perception as a fragment.

Whatever we know about ourselves is the projection of our mind. In such case, what about our knowledge about the spouse? At this point, we need to realize one thing. Our spouse is a separate entity, which is entirely different from us in the dimension of our perception. To understand this, just imagine how much of our qualities are known to our spouse. Our spouse may know slightly better than others due to the intimate relation. But the spouse’s knowledge about us is just a fraction of what we are (or what we consider as ourselves). The same is true with us about our spouse. If we do not know about something, can we really love that entity? If we cannot do it with something, surely it is applicable with respect to our spouse. Please note that this is not to bring in a conflict within our relationships and forgo the spouse, but to resolve the conflict and have better relationship. Whether we truly love our spouse or not we need that relationship for a social life.

At this point, it may be appropriate to discuss a little bit about society, culture and relationships. Two hundred thousand years ago we were just animals. There were no culture and no relationships. Like animals, we were also just doing whatever necessary for our survival and procreation. May be until twenty to thirty thousand years we were like that, but evolving slowly. At this point we got intelligence to use the nature for our survival. Due to continuous evolution and development of intelligence, conflict started between the human beings. To escape from conflicts, (Note that it is not resolving the conflict, but escaping from conflict. We are still in the state of finding means to escape from our conflicts and not at all trying to resolve the conflicts) they devised certain rules. By these rules, they must have been able to escape from the conflicts at that time. Since it was just the escape from the conflict, other conflicts pop out from some other direction. To escape from this new conflict another rule and so on. Different group of human being must have established different set of rules and this has become culture and society. Once they started complying with the rules of their culture and society, relationships must have been developed.

So what we see today as culture, society and relationships are the means of escape from conflict. This does not mean to resolve the conflicts we must forgo culture, society and relationships. Even though if we do that completely with the awareness of what we are doing, we can end all conflicts within us. But practically it is not possible. We are deep in to the cultural, social and relational field and we cannot live a life without such social establishments. Here the reality is we have to have a social life.

Coming back to the point of our attachment to the relationships, our spouse is a totally different entity with respect to ourselves with respect to the present dimension of our perception. We are in that relationship just because of social establishment. Because of our quest to comply with the social establishment and its rules, we seek security in that relationship. The first problem started at our quest to comply with rules and the second problem started when we seek security in the relationships.

When it is said that the first problem started at our quest to comply with rules does not mean that there is no need to comply with the rules. If we want to be in social establishment we need to comply with the rules. The point here is that we need to change inwardly so that complying that rule will not become a problem, but due to our inward change, the conflicts get resolved. This is the essence of this discussion. We need to take utmost care while discussing such a sensitive issue.

Now the point here is are we really having any security with the relationship? If we look it as an outsider of this establishment we can clearly understand there is no such security in any of the relationships. It is because the life of us or our spouse may end at any time, may be now or next moment or next year or next decade or after sixty years, which is (The time scale) uncertain. There is a possibility of misunderstanding and hence breaking the relationship is also there. There is a possibility of moving away from each other for long period due to the requirement of our survival and endless possibilities. Hence there is no actual security for relationships. We caught in between many such conflicts never allow our intelligence to work and hence we somehow like to have a feeling (not real) of security. The mind now establishes a feeling of security (Illusion about relationships) by projecting about this relationship. While doing such projection, the mind also establishes security in availability of many other requirements for basic life like security in shelter, food, money, health, loneliness and so on. Understanding this fact – that is all our feelings of security are just the projection of mind, is really not easy. This goal can be achieved only if we allow our intelligence to work. If we are caught in some belief system or conditioning, which will just project another form of security and that will also be an illusion. For its projection, the mind establishes and uses the constructed qualities like attachment, possessiveness and so on.

We have discussed the mechanism of establishing the constructed quality of attachment with respect to relationships. The above discussion of attachment with the relationship of spouse is applicable to all other relationships exist in our social framework, like parent children relationship, friends relationship and every other relationships.